Miranda Schwartz

I am not an athletic person, at all; I’m a sporadic runner and an occasional hiker who mainly walks for exercise; I do not seek out or enjoy hard physical challenges! Once I hit my late 30s I realized that for the first time in my life I was putting on more weight than I wanted and that the splorge around my waist wasn’t going to go away on its own. I was also feeling increasingly overwhelmed and stressed. For some reason, really half out of nowhere, I decided that Bikram yoga was the thing to try, and that I should do the 30 day challenge. I hesitated for a month or two and then a difficult change in my personal life sent me into it. I signed up for the challenge without having taken a single class; I don’t know that I can recommend this as a rational way to proceed, but I knew that if I didn’t I’d find reasons to not continue. I only managed to complete half the sets the first day, but it was clear that the postures were doing strange and wonderful things to my body, calling on muscles I hadn’t used in years and stretching out all sorts of disused places. It was hard to go every day – hard to find the time, and if I weren’t on the challenge I would absolutely have found a million excuses – and it was a trick to be mindful about hydration and electrolytes – but I felt great, physically engaged in a way I hadn’t for ages, and I could see and feel my body changing, which was tremendously encouraging. All of the instructors are great, all of them are gently merciless, and all are subtly but strongly different in their approach and getting to switch-up the way you mentally approach each session with them brings a breadth to the whole practice. At the end of the 30 day challenge I’ve lost weight (and probably gained a few lbs of muscle); the splorge is visibly reduced, my body is much firmer and more toned; more importantly I’m measurably calmer about my life and it’s complexities; most importantly I’ve developed a sense of reluctant agency about the state of my body, the state of my being, which I didn’t have before. I’m now going 3 days a week but am looking forward, maybe in the fall or winter to putting in another 30 or even 60 day stretch just to see what it does to body and spirit. I’m very grateful for this really tough and effective practice.